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Monday, December 1, 2014

"Christmas Time Is Here"

In past years, Jesse and I have spent the entire day after Thanksgiving shopping, wrapping presents, and decorating for Christmas. While that was my goal this year, having four curious kids makes everything take longer. It took us three days to decorate this year. Here are the highlights for our simple decorations.

I had purchased discounted wreaths the day after Christmas last year to use on our shutters. Jesse and Jack tied the bows onto the wreaths.

Jackson talked his Daddy into buying yet another inflatable decoration. While I was skeptical of the purchase, it's a really cool Spiderman!

Jackson plugged in all of the inflatables and asked me to take a picture of himself beside Santa. He was ridiculously excited about decorating!

Rather than hang outdoor lights, Jesse used two spotlights to showcase the wreaths and inflatables. There are also candles in the windows. All lights are on a timer that goes off at midnight.

While the boys finished hanging wreaths outside and the trio napped, I had the tedious task of fluffing out the artificial tree branches. My Dad was notorious for cursing his way through untangled lights and mumbling "bah humbug". I always feel the need to wear his hat while decorating.

We all took a break to go to a birthday party and Christmas tree lighting, then resumed decorating once the triplets were in bed for the night. Jackson was so focused on hanging the ornaments. His spacing wasn't great, but the tree is well covered.

When we brought James, Amelia, and Maddie downstairs on Sunday morning, they walked around like our home was a museum. All three kept bringing me ornaments off the tree. Unfortunately, it didn't take long before curiosity turned into ornament casualties. By the time I got home from church, Jesse had put a gate up around the tree.

James, Amelia, and Maddie are still intrigued, but no longer destructive. Problem solved!

Jackson enjoyed decorating the tree so much, Jesse and I thought it would be fun for him to have his own tree in his bedroom. Of all the trees, Jackson picked out a black fiber optic tree with silver ornaments. (He original picked out dark blue ornaments, but you couldn't even see them on the tree.)

Here are a few of my favorite decorations downstairs:

Misfits along the picture ledges

The stockings are hung

The view from where I currently sit

I plan to spend every evening making time to enjoy the quiet and stillness of this Advent season.